The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 173

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I > Part 173

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The business directory for 1883 puts down seven firms as metal workers or manufacturers of metal goods. Some of these arc, we believe, put down elsc- where among the machinists, but they themselves make the distinction. They are probably not all exactly in the same line, but this is perhaps the best place in which to group them. So far as our information goes, the largest of these houses is that of William Lang, of South 6th and Ist streets. Mr. Lang commenced business in 1869. He has invested a capital of $25,000 in his business; employs an average of 100 hands; pays

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

. out $40,000 annually for wages, and produces annually about $110,000. At the commencement of his busi- ness Albert Hondlett was associated with him. Other houses, reported as metal workers, are: the Brothers Aston, at 230 Java street, and 133 Manhattan avenue; the Campbell Mining and Reducing Co., 175 North 10th street (we are not certain about their claim to a place herc); William J. Flick, 21 Atlantic avenue ; Charles J. Hassock & Son, 36 Stagg street; James Smith, 65 Java street.

When we come to the manufacture of bolts, nuts, washers, screws and rivets, we are lost in admiration of the ingenuity of the machines that produce these in such perfection and in such vast quantities. Some of these screws-those for the watch manufacturers' use- are so minute that they look like grains of sand, and from four hundred to five hundred of them only weigh an ounce. Others, like the jackscrews, are so large that it requires the strength of several men to turn them in their sockets. There are five or six manufacturers of screws in Brooklyn, the leading houses being William C. Boone & Son, James W. Lyon, and John Fellows. Some of the machinists also give special attention to the manufacture of screws for a particular service. Of the manufacturers of woodworking machinery there are several. Among them are Stone & Mount, Leonard Tilton, and others. Most of these work for two or three of the great furniture manufacturers, and are so fully employed as not to make their vocation very pub- lic. Among the manufacturers of small machines are Robert Brass, Kennedy & Diss, Frank E. Stevens, J. J. Patton & Co., Oakley & Keating, etc., etc.

It is very difficult to estimate the total production of the classes coming under this subsection, yet we can approximate it. The screws, bolts, rivets, etc,, include not less than sixteen establishments, and an annual pro- duct of not far from $250,000; the woodworking ma- chinery, five or six, with a total product of perhaps $125,000; the metal workers, about 200 hands, with a product of not less than $350,000 ; the small ma- chines, sewing machines, etc., etc., about twenty, with a total product of at least $300,000. If we add to this the fifteen establishments for the manufacture of stoves, heaters, and cast-iron hollow ware, which form a distinct branch of the business, we have a further product of about $475,000, making a grand total of fifty-six or fifty-seven establishments, employing, per- haps, 850 hands, and producing about $1,500,000.

SUBSECTION VIII .- Minor Machine Shop Products, and Repairing.

There are very many of these shops, and the num- ber is constantly increasing, and as constantly being diminished - increasing from the enterprising young men who have learned their business, set up for them- selves in a small way, seeking for employment for the few tools they have purchased or made, and perhaps

also for some brother journeyman who has cast in his fortunes with them, doing at first small jobs in the way of making and repairing, and as they win the confi- dence of manufacturers or the public, increasing their facilities till they have a large shop, a dozen or more hands, and constant business. The ranks of these en- terprising young machinists are also constantly dimin- ished, as one after another, having proved his skill and executive ability, passes to the higher position of fore- man or superintendent of some great foundry or ma- chine shop ; or, in rare cases, builds up a large business in some specialty of his own. There are not less than fifty of these jobbing and repairing shops in Kings county, and their annual production ranges all the way from $3,000 to $30,000. They employ at least 175 workmen in all, and their total out-put is not far from $275,000, or, counting in the most prosperous of their number, may reach $300,000.

SUBSECTION IX .- Iron Fences; Railings, of Wrought Iron, Wire, etc., and Wire Work of all kinds.

This is a large subsection, including a great variety of products. The cast-iron fences and posts for the steps and areas of our city houses, the graceful or un- graceful wrought-iron fences of greater length and extent, the wire fences, window guards and railings of all sorts, often elegantly wrought or woven, and, be- yond these, the thousand uses to which woven wire net- work is put for sieves, screens, doors, filters, nets, bas- kets, gratings, meat safes, flower stands, etc., etc. And still beyond these come the multifarious uses of iron and steel wire, of some of which we have had such ex- emplifications in the construction of our beautiful Bridge. The use of it, plain and barbed, for a fencing material encompasses several hundreds of thousands of miles in the West, and is very large in the East also. Wire rope is not only used in bridge-build- ing and in the traction of cars, but it is largely in de- mand for the standing rigging of ships, especially of steamships; is greatly preferred for elevators for mines and mining shafts, and for all kinds of traction where great strength and the minimum wear from friction is required. In all these directions, our Kings County manufacturers are equal to any in the United States. In cast-iron and wrought-iron fences and railings, ceme- tery iron-work, area gates, window guards and gratings, awning irons, sheet-iron doors and shutters, etc., are the houses of Howell & Saxtan, Knight Brothers, Smith & Rhind, the Eagle Iron Works of Jacob May, Howard & Morse, Philip HI. Dugro and James Forman, whose establishment, the Brooklyn Wire Works, in Court strect, though small, does excellent work, turning out, with a very few men, the best of wire and orna- mental iron work. The North American Iron Works, the Atlas Iron Works, Thomas F. Rowland, Richard Knudsen, and many others, are largely engaged, and in the excellence of their work they have no superiors.

Holam Cable

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THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

Annin & Co. have a high reputation for the excellence of their iron pipes and tubes.

The manufacture of wire cloth of all descriptions, and of fine wires, is a large industry in Kings county. There are nearly twenty firms, large and small, of all descriptions, engaged in it; but so great is the variety of purposes to which it is applied, that there is very little rivalry among them. Some confine themselves to the weaving of iron wire cloth, for which there is a large demand for window screens and doors, meat safes, and the coarser wire screens for coal, sand, etc., etc. Others make and weave fine steel wires for various uses. Some, instead of weaving the wires which they have drawn, twist them into ropes and cords of varying size, from the great wire ropes or cables of the Brook- lyn Bridge to the rigging of a steamship, or the more delicate ropes of a pleasure yacht.

Others, again, draw and weave almost exclusively brass and copper wires for sieves and delicate screens; and one house makes a specialty of producing from these metals the Fourdrinier wires and the Fourdrinier wire cloth, so largely in demand for the use of paper- makers.

This house, the William Cabble Excelsior Wire Manufacturing Co., whose extensive works in Ainslie street and Union avenue are depicted on the following page, has had an interesting history, which will be found in detail in the following biography of

THE BROTHERS CABBLE .- The Cabble family are of ancient and good blood. For several hundred years they had been among the honorable and esteemed citizens of Frome, an old and pleasant manufacturing town of Somersetshire, England; and three hundred and seventy-five years ago their ancestor, John Cabble, was granted a charter by Henry VIII. to build and endow a chantry in the parish church of the town, which he dedicated to St. Nicholas. On the large and beau- tiful stained-glass window of the chantry were depicted, ac- cording to the custom of the time, the Cabble coat of arms. Beside the usual armorial bearings, the principal figure was a sea-horse rampant, impaling a text K and a bell, the whole enclosed by a rope or cable, a double play upon the family name ; this window is still in existence. The family had continued to be respectable and prosperous, and about the beginning of the present century they had become dissenters, enrolling themselves among the Independents, of which several members of the family were prominent and active communicants.

It was not far from the year 1800, that Edward Cabble went into the employ of Mr. Joseph Whiting, a wire manufacturer of Frome, and after a time married Mr. Whiting's daughter, and at his death succeeded to his business. He was an able, intelligent and enterprising man, conscientious and upright in his dealings, and brought up his family with great care, giving his children good opportunities of education, and training them thoroughly to business habits. He died in 1844, leaving four sons, the eldest of whom, William Cabble, then a young man about twenty-six years of age, inherited his business, and was thenceforward to be the head of the family and the protector and father of the younger members of it. William Cabble, whose portrait graces our pages, was no or- dinary man. He had been well educated in the city of Bath,

and had obtained a complete mastery of the wire manufac- ture. He was enterprising and ambitious, but not rash or impulsive. He saw very clearly that Frome offered no chance for such extension of his business as he deemed desirable for himself and his brothers, and he decided to emigrate to the United States, taking them with him. The next year, 1845, he sailed for New York with his family and brothers, and at once began to look about for business. Possessing a fair amount of property, and a large share of sound common sense, he was not disposed to risk everything upon an immediate start in business, among a people whose ways and methods were in many respects strange to him. He was already mar- ried to the noble woman who survives him, and he took his brothers into his family and sought employment for himself and his brother Joseph in the wire manufactory of Mr. Robert Cocker. He remained with Mr. Cocker for two years, and then resolved to start in business for himself, at Roxbury, Connecticut. His first venture was unfortunate. It was too far from a good market for his goods ; and as the mill was run by water power, a great and continued drought dried up the stream which supplied it, and compelled him to close it for six months. Disposing of this property, he returned to New York, and soon after established a mill at Belleville, New Jersey. Here he remained for three years, and then returned to New York, and located his works in Gold street. Soon after this he became acquainted with Mr. David Woods, of Hester and Elizabeth streets, who was then at the head of one of the oldest wire-weaving establishments in the country. In 1854 Mr. Woods made overtures to Mr. Cabble to become his partner. Not long after, Mr. Woods sold out his interest in the business to Mr. Cabble, who thus became the head of a large and flourishing manufactory, located in Centre, Hester and Elizabeth streets, and with a warehouse at 43 Fulton street. He had taken his three brothers into the factory, not as partners, but as workmen, that they might become thor- oughly familiar with all the details of the business; and while they were all skilled workmen, the youngest, Elijah, who was only a boy of fifteen when he came to this country, had developed much of his brother's enterprise and executive ability. In 1857 Mr. Cabble removed his works to the Eastern District of Brooklyn, hiring a factory at Tenth and Ainslie streets. Two years after, this factory was burned down. He purchased the site and rebuilt it, and a few years later, de- siring larger quarters, he bought the site of the present works on Union avenue and Ainslie street. In 1860, finding that there was a large demand for hoop-skirts, he built a new factory, and employed five hundred hands in the drawing, rolling and tempering of steel wire, used in their manufac- ture. When, a few years later, these garments went out of fashion, he sold the machinery and replaced it with iron looms for wire-weaving.' His business prospered, notwith- standing several disasters by fire.

In 1870, this good, wise and judicious business man, es- teemed and beloved in all the relations of life, was laid on his death-bed, smitten by that terrible malady, Bright's dis- ease of the kidneys. But death had no terrors for him. With a calm and humble faith, he prepared to surrender his spirit to the keeping of the God who gave it. He was mind- ful of the trust which his father had left to him, and made provision in his will for all those, in any sense, dependent upon him. He provided that a joint stock company should be formed, to carry on the business, for which he also left the necessary capital ; that his wife and daughter, and his three brothers, should constitute the company, and that his youngest brother, Elijah, should be the President, his brother Joseph, Secretary, and E. Cabble, Treasurer. Elijah Cabble was also to be his executor.

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

The result proved the soundness of his judgment and the wisdom of his choice. Mr. Elijah Cabble, whose portrait graces the opposite page, assumed the position to which he was called with the hearty co-operation and good will of all the members of the family, and a more united and happy family it would be hard to find. He has devoted his whole powers to building up the business, with a persistent earnest- ness and an untiring fidelity to the interests of the family, which is as rare as it is beautiful, impairing his health by his devotion to the business. The second brother, Joseph, died in 1879, a man of rare gifts and talents, with whom music was a passion, and art a delight. His son, Joseph, took his place in the company as Secretary, and several of the . younger generation have been admitted, after thoroughtrain- ing, as shareholders in the company. Mr. Edward Cabble, the third brother, is now Superintendent.

their original length. After drawing, they are an- nealed, cleaned, and if necessary drawn again till they have reached the proper degree of fineness. They are next tested, examined and classified as to strength, temper and fineness. When ready for use, the wire is wound off on spools by the spooling machine, for the warp and shuttles, and reeled for special purposes on hand wheels. These spools are now taken by the weavers, and the wire from them wound upon the back beam of large, ponderous, iron looms, varying in width from four to ten feet, and weighing from three to seven tons each; then, one by one, the threads are taken through the hed- dles or harness, then through the reed, which form the

THE WILLIAM CABBLE EXCELSIOR IWIRE [WORKS.

Meanwhile, in these thirteen years, the business has trebled in amount, and new buildings have been erected, until they cover nearly half of a large city-block ; the manufacture of Fourdrinier wire, and Fourdrinier wire-cloth, for the use of the paper-makers, is constantly extending, and the demand, stimulated by the excellence of their goods, more than keeps pace with the supply. Their other lines of wire goods are also popular, and find a ready sale.

The Fourdrinier wire cloth, the making of which is the specialty of these works, is woven from very fine and perfect brass wire, and all the processes, except the manufacture of the brass, are conducted here. In the wire-drawing rooms, the large brass rings of coarse wire are arranged ready for the successive dies through which they are to be drawn, till they have attained two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand times

mesh of the cloth, sixty or seventy threads (as the case may be) to an inch, these are tied to a bar, this is fas- tened to a canvas, which is attached to the loom, and the operation of weaving then commences by throwing the shuttle back and forth. The weaving is performed, as usual on hand looms, the shuttles being provided with the bobbins of fine wire. The wire cloth which is thus woven at the rate of four or five yards a day by each weaver, is carefully inspected by the Super- intendent; and, if found perfect, the pieces are sewed together, very deftly, to form an endless sheet, then drawn out, stretched, squared and made true, and rolled and boxed, ready for shipment.

Nearly all paper, of whatever material, is now made on the Fourdrinier machine, and as the wire cloth under

Click Gabbie 1

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THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

its necessary hard usage requires frequent renewals, the demand for it is constant and rapidly increasing. The wire cloth made by the Cabble works, is of such uni- formly superior quality, that it is regarded as the best in the market.

As Mr. Cabble says: "Our aim is not the almighty dollar; we are proud of our work and of our name. Our father's boys were all brought up in the same business. We inherited it from father and maternal grandfather, and our aim is to make goods that can- not be surpassed."

Besides the Fourdrinier wire cloth, and Fourdrinier wires, dandy rolls and cylinder wires, the Cabble works also manufacture iron-wire cloth for coal-burning loco- motives, iron-wire bolting cloth, and other grades of iron-wire cloth; galvanized wire netting, fencing, fen- ders and guards, sieves and bolters, traps, screens, flower-stands, ropes, railings, chains and settees.

Their buildings, on Union avenue and Ainslie street, Brooklyn, E. D., are very extensive. They consist of four buildings, erected around an open court. The loom factory (one story, brick, 100 feet by 36 feet, with slate roof and lantern skylight) has just been completed. The front on Union avenue is 150 feet, with a depth of 100 feet, and on Ainslie street, the front is 92 feet, with a depth of 100 feet. The main building, on Union avenne, is 75 feet by 40 feet, four stories, and a base- ment occupied as an engine-house. The engine, a 40- horse power, and built by Weisbecker & Ray, of Brooklyn, is named "James A. Garfield." Here is the driving and heating force of the whole establishment ; for the whole is heated by steam.

The office is in the two-story building, on Ainslie street, a fine building, with mansard roof, giving a third story, with an ornamental paling in the centre, from which rises an imposing flag-staff.

The directors' room is the parlor of the house ; it is handsomely furnished, and its walls are hung with paintings. Adjoining the main building, on Union avenue, are: the machine-shop, where all the machinery is made and repaired ; the blacksmiths' shop, where the forging is done, and the carpenters' shop, where every outfit for a large factory is at hand. The build- ings cost $45,000. They employ now about 105 hands, and very many of their employees, male and female, have been with them for many years; it being a rule of the establishment to make but few changes, which al- most always implies faithful workers and good work. The factory is connected by telephone with the ware- house at 43 Fulton street, New York.

The annual amount of wages paid is $70,000, which, considering the number of women and boys in the force, is, we think, the highest pay roll per capita in Kings county, or elsewhere. Their annual ont-put at present is from $240,000 to $250,000, but they can, in years of active and prosperous business, nearly double this amount with their present machinery and appliances.

Of the other manufacturers of wire goods, Messrs. Howard & Morse and J. II. De Witt & Son are both very large houses, and manufacture wire cloth and almost every description of wire work already enumer- ated, except Fourdrinier wires and Fourdrinier wire cloth, these, as we have said, being only manufactured in Kings county or New York by the William Cabble Company. The out-put of these two houses is about the same as that of the William Cabble Company. The other honses in the business, The Brooklyn Wire Cloth Works (Richardson & Hodgson), Smith & Rhind, Joseph Norwood, The N. Y. Wire and Wire Rope Company, Philip Schmitt, Michael Mc Cormick, John Mc Murray, Francis A. Fuy, John Jansen, John II. Schweers, etc., make almost every variety of wire goods and wire rope. Several of them are large and enter- prising houses, doing a good and profitable business; others are but new beginners, but make excellent goods, and will achieve success.

The census reported in 1880, on " wire work," 10 establishments; $240,778 capital; 172 hands; $83,690 wages; $97,641 material, and $228,204 annual product. As we have seen, there are three, at least, of the houses in the trade which each excecd this product. Our figures are: 17 establishments; about 525 hands; about $180,000 wages; about $1,050,000 annual product.

SECTION VII. The Manufacture of Steel.

The manufacture of iron from the ore is not one of the industries of Kings County. The production of steel is not on a large scale, and there are, we believe, no Bessemer steel works here, these requiring a costly and extensive plant, and certain facilities for obtaining ores and fluxes which do not exist here. The census persistently ignored the existence of any steel works here, although one had been at work here since 1868 or 1869, and the other for five or six years. The Chrome Steel Works, Kent avenue, cor. of Keap st., is deserving of a place in our history, if there were no other reason, for its plucky persistency in overcoming all obstacles, and for refusing to be overwhelmed or discouraged by a long succession of disasters. It was started to de- monstrate the truth of a theory, that chromium was a good and sufficient substitute for carbon in the manu- facture of steel.

The first experimenters, though good metallurgists in a small way, with crucible and cupel in the labora- tory, were not at home in the larger operations of the furnace, and met with technical difficulties and obsta- cles which were as unexpected as they were annoying; they would turn ont a number of ingots of very supe- rior steel, its qualities surpassing everything in the market; and while they were rejoicing over this, and reckoning their profits, the very next batch, selected from the same materials, and made by the same pro-

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

cesses, so far as they could determine, would come out with no cohesive power, and none of the qualities re- quired in steel; and yet the one ingot could not be dis- tinguished by its looks from the other. The reasons for this difference could not be ascertained, and, discour- aged by long-continucd ill success, the original partners withdrew, one after another, till but one was left; but he, a Scotch-Irishman, held on and held out, and within the last four or five years has succeeded, in part at least, in overcoming this very stubborn difficulty. This uncertainty of the tenacity of the product, had given the Chrome steel a bad reputation. The company was a bidder at low rates for the steel wire for use on the Bridge, but its reputation for uncertain tenacity of its steel caused the bid to be thrown out. Of late, the steel has been quite uniform in its character, but the difficulty of insufficient capital, which has hampered it from the first, still causes it difficulty. The invention has proved itself valuable, and it is time that the at- tention of capitalists was turned to it. The out-put is now, we learn, from $50,000 to $60,000 per annum.

The other steel manufactory of Brooklyn is that of Wright & Son, in Hancock street, between Reid and Patchen avenues. They make carbon steel, but the extent of their works or the quality of the steel we have been unable to ascertain.

SECTION VIII. Saws and Files.

This is Mr. Frothingham's heading, and his statistics are: 24 establishments; $161,900 capital; 302 hands; $97,647 wages; $90,718 material; $249,805 annual pro- duct. The census office assumed that there was but one saw manufacturer in Brooklyn (there were three at that time), remanded him to the miscellaneous industries, and inserted Files, 12 establishments, $25,750 capital, 76 hands, $29,192 wages, $21,970 material, $68,509 an- nual product. Both entries are hopelessly wrong, and only illustrate the folly of meddling with statistics, which the officials of the census office were incapable of understanding. The two branches of business, which are intimately connected, have been carried on with many vicissitudes, but the annual product of the two is not now less than $500,000, though there have been sev- eral failures within the last two years. The number of hands is probably now not far from 400.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 173

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1114

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114